


The Terror and Erebus Stories

by AlysanneBlackwood



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (partly), (very light), Alternate Universe - 1950s, Angst, Carnivale is a liminal space, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dancing and Singing, Dry Humping, Epistolary, Existential Angst, F/M, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Flirtatiousness, Flirting, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Making Out, Meet-Cute, Roleplay, Self-Blame, Shame, Sophia needs a hug, Thank You Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, Thomas Blanky: Fitzier Shipper, Valentine's Day, hurt/some comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29295633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlysanneBlackwood/pseuds/AlysanneBlackwood
Summary: Or, The Terror Rarepair Week 2021.Seven stories showcasing less-featured Terror ships that I'm partial too.  Some are light, some are dark, some are both, and some are in-between.  All epigraphs come from songs of the nineteen-sixties because that's what I listen to much of the time.  Further information will be in the individual chapter summaries.
Relationships: Esther Blanky/Thomas Blanky, Henry Foster Collins/William Orren, John Irving/Edward Little, Lt George Hodgson/Lt Henry T.D. Le Vesconte, Sophia Cracroft/Francis Crozier, Thomas Hartnell/Thomas Jopson, William Pilkington/Thomas Armitage
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	1. First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> The fic's title comes from the excellent film THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940), directed by George Cukor and written by Donald Ogden Stewart based on Philip Barry's 1939 play of the same name.

_Well, she looked at me_

_And I, I could see_

_That before too long, I’d fall in love with her_

\-- “I Saw Her Standing There” by the Beatles (written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney)

***

This early in the expedition (well, really, before it begins), there is something quiet about the ship. It may have men running up and down its passages, ducking in and out of its cabins and galley, their boots pounding the floorboards with hurried steps, but Henry has always found a silence in the walls, in the low ceilings that do not yet lurch and pitch and groan with the sea’s rolilings. To stand within a ship with its anchor lowered is to creep about within a sleeping giant who is easily woken, and so its silence is all the more appreciated while it lasts. Henry leans his head back against the wall of his cabin, taking in the knots in the wood of the ceiling. 

“Pardon me, sir?” He turns his head at the sound of the voice, broken out of his reflections. A man stands in the doorway, dressed as befits an AB. Henry barely looks at his face before he remembers that he’s not wearing his hat, and, to his embarrassment, nearly scrambles for it just as he realises that there’s not enough room to scramble for anything in here. His hat now firmly on his head, he turns again.

“What do you need, Mr--”

“Orren, sir. William Orren. Lieutenant Fairholme told me to report to the second master. You’re he?”

“Yes, I am.” Henry takes Mr Orren in. He’s a little shorter than himself -- he has to incline his head ever so slightly to meet his eyes -- and thin and ropey, the shape of a man who’s spent his life up in riggings and crow’s nests. His face is shaded by his cap: angular, with a pointed nose and prominent bones; not a face most would consider handsome, but his eyes are what Henry can’t tear his gaze away from -- deep-set, and so dark they are almost black. Every few seconds they dart in one direction or another as Mr Orren takes in his surroundings, and something sparks in their depths, something that Henry imagines only comes to the surface around those he knows best. And then there it is: the certainty he always gets, beginning in his stomach and spreading up through his chest, when someone intrigues him; the certainty that he wants to know them. 

“Where do you need me, sir?” Mr Orren has propped himself against the doorframe, his hands in his pockets. A smile seems to be -- no, is certainly -- tugging at the right corner of his mouth, and his eyes are still darting, but more tightly now, flicks of the irises that would be imperceptible if you weren’t looking for them, up and down and side to side. Henry knows this look, the gaze that lingers before dropping just soon enough to avoid blatant coquettishness. He wishes, just this once, that it would continue to linger, linger until it fixes and the coquettishness turns to hunger or affection. “Well, Mr Collins?” Mr Orren’s voice is perfectly even, in contrast with the small grin that has conquered his face. “There must be others waiting to speak with you.”

“Of course.” Henry tries to remember where he’s been sending the ABs, and what part of the ship needs more men, but Mr Orren’s smile, growing wider, is a damned distracting thing; he can’t help but return it, and they stand there grinning fit to beat a pair of fools before Henry forms a coherent thought that hasn’t to do with aforementioned smile or eyes. “She’s near twenty years old, Mr Orren, and she’s not at her strongest anymore. Go above. The rigging wants checking for reinforcement.”

“Of course, sir.” Mr Orren rights himself a little more slowly than one usually does, turns, and walks back down the passage. His grin seems to be the last thing visible, the corner of his upturned mouth the last thing to vanish into the galley. 

Henry resumes looking at the knots in the ceiling. It would be ridiculous to indulge this fancy as much as he’s been doing the past five minutes any other time than the present, whilst they’re still in port. Once they’re up in the arctic waters there will be little time to think of anything but keeping themselves warm and finding the Passage.

But if there’s not some small part of him that isn’t gone to Mr Orren, there certainly will be.


	2. Give Us a Room, and Close the Door, Leave Us For a While

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the first winter at Beechey Island, Jopson and Hartnell check in (or attempt to check in) with each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Perhaps it would be unpopular, but I think that the ship featured in this story should be given the official nickname of "Pinball Wizard". And speaking of that, the title of this chapter comes from the Who song "The Acid Queen" from their album 'Tommy' because, well, someone had to.  
> 2\. I initially envisioned this as being a bit closer to some of the scenes in the show where people try to offer comfort, but as I went on, I concluded that neither Jopson nor Hartnell were quite in a place to do that, so have some hurt and attempted comfort instead.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for grief and depression.

_ See me, feel me  _

_ Touch me, heal me _

\-- “Christmas” by The Who (written by Pete Townshend)

***

“Mr Hartnell.”

Tom looked up from the sail he was mending (the wind off of Beechey was nothing if not, to put it politely, determined) to see Thomas standing above him. “Would you come with me?”

The phrasing being a request, rather than a command, ruled out the possibility that Captain Crozier needed him, or any of the other officers for the matter. Nevertheless, Tom set down his work and followed Thomas down the narrow passage to what he and his fellow ABs called officers’ country, and through the third door. He knew he should have asked what Thomas wanted him for, but they hadn’t had any time to themselves since before the burial, and it was impossible not to notice the dark circles that more often than not appeared beneath Thomas’s eyes. 

Thomas slid the door closed and leaned against it, his arms folded. “Are you alright?”

Tom swallowed. He had expected this question, but as soon as he heard it, all knowledge of  _ how he was  _ forced itself from his mind to be replaced with stubborn, insistent uncertainty. “Are  _ you  _ alright?” was all he could reply.

He watched as Thomas’s shoulders loosened, as his arms fell to his sides and his frame sank towards the floor, watched as steward’s quiet efficiency peeled away. Thomas exhaled, rubbed his eyes and said, “I think I am, most of the time.”

Tom didn’t bother to point out that if you only  _ thought  _ you were alright, you probably weren’t; that they both knew. “Sit with me?” he asked. “If we have time.”

“Captain Crozier’s in a meeting on  _ Erebus.  _ There’s time.” Thomas crossed the cabin in two steps and sat down on the bed, more heavily than he had in times previous. Tom joined him, the both of them wedged together between the wall and the shelves. Hands at once found their way to hands: cracked palm to cracked palm, little finger to index, and Tom sensed a great weight hovering just above his shoulders, ready to either vanish or come down upon him. Without thinking, he closed his eyes and leaned his head on Thomas’s shoulder; felt, in response, an arm encircle his own. Another time he might have pressed his mouth to the strip of exposed flesh above Thomas’s collar, but what came from that would do nothing for him, and, he suspected, nothing for Thomas either. Neverending dark made one too slow for it. So they sat, letting silence enclose them, silence that Tom willed to go on until the very last second, but all the same, when Thomas placed three fingers under his chin and raised his head so they were facing each other and said, “I told you how I am. Now tell me how you are”, it was gratitude that suddenly made it hard to breathe.

“Well, I suppose,” he said at last, and it was half a lie. There were indeed hours when he had so buried himself in his current task that he almost forgot John, and the cold and the dark. More words crept up his throat.  _ I don’t want to think, because if I do, I’ll fall into some hole and never climb out, or at least I feel like I will.  _ He bit his tongue. “You look tired.”

“It’s the sky, now. Makes me think it’s nighttime.”

“Captain Crozier’s not working you too hard, is he?”

“No.” Thomas smiled sadly. “We can’t keep trying to spare each other, you know.” His voice lowered. “Talk to me. God knows I need to think about something other than my duties.”

“You really want to know?”  _ If I tell you, you’ll want to think of nothing but your duties. _

“Yes.” Those blue eyes fixed him with a gaze just earnest enough to avoid steeliness. “Please.”

Another swallow. How to put it? The desire for a blank mind seemed, all of a sudden, utterly mad. “These past weeks, there’s been no time to stop. And three months ago, that might have been troublesome for me, but now if there ever is time to stop, I don’t want it. If I stop, I think, and if I think, I--” He searched for better words, any words other the ones at the forefront of his mind, and found none. “I won’t be able to climb out of them. My thoughts. I know, it’s mad; how does anyone avoid  _ thinking?” _

Thomas was quiet a moment. “You can’t,” he said at last, more to himself than to Tom, “but it can’t be so mad to want it.” He hesitated. “I want it. When I can’t sleep.” He let out a strange, quavering sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Oh, God. I thought I’d be better at this by now.”

_ So did I.  _ Well. Perhaps that wasn’t fair. He’d been only two when they’d buried Charlie in the churchyard, and remembered little of how his father and mother had dealt with it. He now supposed that they’d hidden their grief from him, but he couldn’t imagine how anyone feasibly did so when it crept upon you at the oddest of times in chest-crushing swells. “Do you mind if we -- if we don’t talk anymore? For now, I mean. I don’t think about everything so much when we’re together.”

Silence resumed, and by supper-time Tom would not be sure who it was who first tugged the other down to the mattress with him, but that was of no matter. The brief glimpse of the look in Thomas’s eyes told him that he too needed this. Perhaps one of them whispered a  _ come here  _ as they lay against each other, faces buried in hair and brass-buttoned chest. Close your eyes. Let the feeling of being held, the feelings that come with being held, into your mind. They’ll submerge everything else, for a time.


	3. Only Indiscretion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irving and Little chance across each other in the orlop, and existential dread proves to be one hell of a drug.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for possible internalized homophobia. (I don't try to write it as it's not my experience, and went more for a general feeling of shame, but it might have crossed over into the former.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I took inspiration for Little's longest piece of dialogue from a few lines in Sholem Asch's 1905 play GOT FUN NEKOME (GOD OF VENGEANCE). It's a fantastic piece, and is available to read in full on Google Books if you're interested.  
> 2\. This ended up a bit more coherent than I sketched it out, but I hope the epigraph still makes sense.

_Purple haze all in my eyes_

_Don’t know if it’s day or night_

_You got me blowing, blowing my mind_

_Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?_

\-- “Purple Haze” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience (written by Jimi Hendrix)

***

At this very moment, John Irving should have been above deck. He should have been doing his part to see that all was going smoothly, and moreover, he should have been walking to the sickbay to see if Mr MacBean was recovered enough to resume his duties (he had been laid up with a particularly bad burn to the leg, acquired whilst in the hold), as Lieutenant Little had asked him to do. What he should most certainly not have been doing was hiding in the orlop and having what might be charitably termed an attack of nerves. No, an “attack of nerves” wasn’t right. It wasn’t exactly that he was panicking (he thought), but rather that the knowledge that no thaw was coming soon and they were frozen-in for a good half-year or more was making itself good and comfortable in his mind, and the consequence was the loss of any remnants of _his_ comfort. Never before had life, and the concept of humanity in general, seemed so inconsequential. If God loved His children, then why did He make nature so unforgiving? Did He want to challenge everyone to overcome it? Or were they meant to surrender to it, to allow it to overcome them? John pictured himself lying supine on the ice, watching as more and more of it burst from itself until mountains of it had walled him in and never saying a word, only breathing softly in and out as it encased him and pushed him down into the water’s freezing black depths. A violent shudder seized him, and he did not know if it was from fear or longing. No -- fear, it had to be fear. It was a terrible thought, and a thought he should not be having. A third lieutenant was rather a way off from being in command, but with the ice, now who knew…?

 _If God loved His children, then why did He make nature so unforgiving?_ A child’s question, after they had witnessed death for the first time, or were suffering a storm or a drought. It was ridiculous to ask it when they had all heard Captain Crozier’s mutterings about Sir John’s “absolute fucking irresponsibility”. Yet it was completely impossible to look out across the ice and not feel utterly reduced to some small, useless thing whose only purpose was to die and then feed the world with its rotting flesh.

Oh, _God._ This line of thought was exhausting. John curled further into himself, trying to block out the crates and the endlessly groaning walls and floor.

“Lieutenant Irving?” The voice sounded hollow; cracked, as if it were a physical thing. John lifted his head from his arms and opened his mouth to make an excuse, but the look on Edward’s face stopped him. He knew the first lieutenant for a quiet man, and more and more given to downcast looks as of late, but this was different. This was the look of a man who felt that he was already dead: peeled wide open, eyes enormous and empty as a corpse’s. John drew a sharp breath and thought that if it were not already so dark back here, he would see dread made corporeal about them into a thick grey fog.

“Do you mind if I sit?” Edward asked. John shook his head. Some company, even if it were mutually morose company, might do him something better than his present state, if not any good. Edward nodded and sank down across from him. “Thank you,” he said, his face no longer visible as his head had dropped towards the floor.

The space between the crates was so small that they were sitting foot to foot, knee pressed tight up against knee. John swallowed hard. He should get up, leave Edward to himself, and find somewhere else to sit where indecency could be avoided. Better yet, he should pull himself together and go above; it had been nearly fifteen minutes since he had first descended, and George and Captain Crozier would no doubt be wondering where he was. 

But the look on Edward’s face made him feel worse than ever before, for if Edward, who was so much closer to command, could look so bleak, then how would they get on should anything happen to anyone who _was_ in command?

He suddenly felt a puff of something hot against his face; blinking and returning to the orlop, he realised that Edward had leaned forward so that his face was mere inches away. This close the corpse-eyes were deep, and they seemed to have within them: a magnetic force that kept John’s own eyes on them even when he wanted nothing more than to look away. Edward’s mouth twitched; a _what?_ formed in John’s mind and he was about to speak when he found that he could not. There was a sudden pressure on his mouth, a pressure that took away all possibility of moving it. Still half-caught up in the present situation above, he did not realise what it was even after it stopped.

“I’m sorry,” Edward muttered, pulling away, and then it fell into place: a kiss. Blood rose hot in John’s face, and he looked down at his knees, painfully aware of how close they still were. He closed his eyes. Several voices clamoured in his mind, the louder ones shouting for him to go above, to make Captain Crozier aware of Edward’s indiscretion, or, if he was too much of a coward to do that, to forget it had ever happened. But then there was one that began quietly and steadily grew louder, one that said _please, again,_ and _it’s naught but a distraction, a few minutes where your judgement slipped. Why, it’s nothing at all._ How many times since they woke to find themselves enclosed in ice had he wished for a distraction, any distraction, but always _except for that_ when his mind inevitably turned to it? It was inescapable. Best to get it out of the way now and forget it later. He raised his head.

“Don’t be,” he heard himself say, and inclined himself forwards. Edward’s lips were dry, and John could feel where he had been biting them; as they continued he felt the heat in his cheeks recede only to make itself known once again by pooling in his belly, burning him up from the inside out. He was suddenly grasping at Edward’s face, desperate to feel warm, living flesh underneath his hands, desperate to feel rather than to know that he was not the only one down here, struggling to make himself feel like a whole human being again. A hissing sound reached his ears from far away, came closer, and made itself clear. Edward was talking between kisses, words coming in nearly incomprehensible streams. It was only since he was so close that John was able to understand.

“When we get home, you’ll visit your father… I’ll be there two days later, and we’ll have supper and when your father goes to bed, we’ll -- we’ll -- it’ll be proper. Not like this. In a bed, we’ll be able to stretch out when we hold each other and I’ll… oh, I’ll do whatever you ask, everything or nothing at all… Do you want me to, John? Do you?”

And John, lost in a new haze, one of mouths and breath and that heat, now spread through him and scorching every inch of his insides, could only reply with the word at the forefront of his mind: “Yes.”

The floor creaked, and they sprang apart, although it was immediately apparent that it was only the ship and no one was nearby. At once the heat which had been so needed _(so wanted,_ that voice corrected him, and he told himself he hadn’t heard it) became unbearable. John squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself. What had come over him? How could he have allowed himself this? Even if he repented, it would haunt him the rest of his days as a reminder of how weak he’d been, how weak he _was_ for remembering it in the first place. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have--”

Six bells rang, and Edward all but jumped up. “Captain Crozier will be wanting us.”

“Of course.” John followed suit, but waited until Edward was out of sight to begin his walk towards the ladder. He ran his tongue over his lips and found them raw and swollen. Best to speak as little as possible up there, and to say that he had been checking the provisions for anything spoilt, when asked.

He could still taste Edward inside his mouth, in the back of his throat where their fear had mingled thick and sour. Another swallow could not dislodge it. Perhaps nothing could, or would. God would leave it there as fitting punishment.

Nonsense. There was nothing there that a drink could not dissolve, and nothing that had been so coherent that he could not convince himself he had imagined it in a moment of runaway supposition. He reached the ladder and ascended, pausing only when his fingers brushed the wall.

He winced. They stung, and then burned.


	4. Miss Anville and Lord Orville in the Dark Walks (With Apologies to Miss Burney)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pilkington and Armitage have themselves a good bit of fun at Carnivale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. EVELINA is a 1778 novel of manners by Frances Burney, and a certain predecessor to Jane Austen's novels. It's sharp, witty, and very enjoyable; you can read it in full on Project Gutenberg.  
> 2\. "Dark walks" were hidden, shaded areas in public pleasure-gardens (such as Vauxhall and Marylebone) where people could, in the modern parlance, hook up.  
> 3\. Initially the roleplay aspect of this was going to be a little more prominent, as I wanted Pilkington to come to Carnivale as Evelina. Then I rewatched the sequence and realized that his costume wasn't ambiguous enough to even represent her in an abstract sense.  
> 4\. As for the epigraph -- the nonsense phrase "da doo ron ron" seems to me an expression of overwhelming attraction, and so I thought it fitting.

_Yeah, he caught my eye_

_Yes; oh my, oh my_

_And when he walked me home--_

_Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron_

\-- “Da Doo Ron Ron” by the Crystals (written by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich)

***

To be perfectly honest, to come to Carnivale as Shakespeare’s Prince of Wales was rather confusing when you couldn’t remember which one you had decided you were. Was he Hal, or was he Edward? William supposed he should be worrying more about this sudden lack of memory than about who he was meant to be (especially when a Prince of Wales had not been his preferred guise), but tonight was meant to be all merry-making, and he had resolved to worry about nothing particularly serious. 

Besides, it was more than a little difficult to be serious when he kept catching Tom Armitage looking at him across the table where they, along with the other Marines, had situated themselves. Every time he caught his gaze, Tom would quickly avert his eyes, or lean over and join in conversation with Sergeant Tozer, or with Wilkes and Reed. If William had been any less modest, or less careful, he would have been inclined to preen. It was, after nearly two years of sea and cold and dark and ice, frankly delicious to be stared at with even the slightest possibility of attraction, and he was determined to explore that possibility as soon as it could be done. Tom was an amiable fellow, and possessed of a clever streak for self-preservation that fascinated William as much as it troubled him (the Marines had never entirely forgiven him for not acknowledging his part in and taking his punishment for the trouble with the Lady Silence when everyone else, including Sergeant Tozer, had). And now was not only the perfect time to act upon Tom’s ever-lengthening looks (the celebration’s dimly lit enormity providing good cover), but perhaps the last time, as rumours of leaving the boats and walking out for the nearest fort had been swirling. 

So William leaned across the table, fixed his eyes on Tom’s (catching him once more in the midst of a stare), and asked, “Mr Armitage, would you speak with me somewhere quieter?” Tom said nothing, only nodded, but this time he did not drop his gaze, and William saw something gleam behind his eyes, something that brought him near to trembling. They rose and shouldered their way through the crowded tables, until they had reached a relatively secluded spot near a sort of corridor.

Tom looked him up and down, the gleam now clearer and mischievous. “And you are?”

“Shakespeare’s Prince of Wales.”

“Which one? Hal or Edward?”

“I don’t know,” William said, and felt great relief at speaking so freely. It seemed that Carnivale was not part of the expedition at all, or even England herself, but somewhere else, somewhere where everyone could lay himself bare. “I knew when I decided, but now I don’t remember. I wouldn’t even have come as one of them if I could help it, but by the time the costume-chest came round to me, all the gowns were gone.”

“The gowns?” Tom raised an eyebrow and his mouth lifted into a half-smile. “Elizabeth Bennet? Kate Nickleby?” William shook his head, and Tom’s half-smile became whole. “I’m a poor guesser, Private. Go on and tell me.”

“Evelina Anville,” William said, removing his paper crown and hood. He had always found a kinship with the written girl, as London and its society was unfamiliar to both of them, and he too had discovered that the difficulty of orienting himself within it made him prone to embarrassment. 

Tom nodded. “Not bad.” His voice softened, and he leant forwards. “Tell me, would you have liked to be called Miss Anville the whole night, if you had? That’s what I would have preferred.” _And,_ his tone implied (if William was correct), _I’d have called you that a thousand times over whilst doing whatever you pleased me to._ The near-trembling feeling made itself known again.

“Why not? I’ve wished occasionally that I was someone else, since then I’d be some _where_ else.”

“So have I. But we’re somewhere else already, so how about this?” The mischievous glint had by now taken over Tom’s eyes, and they were brighter and more animated than William had ever seen them. “I’ll call you Miss Anville, and you’ll call me… which one do you want?”

“Lord Orville, although Sir Clement Willoughby’s more fitting. After all…” William let his voice drop. “Aren’t we very near to the dark walks?”

Tom looked down the corridor, which was lit far less than the tents proper. “That we are. Walk with me, Miss Anville?”

If there was one thing William remembered about Evelina and Lord Orville, it was that they wouldn’t be caught together dead in the dark walks. They were far too gentle and polite for it; the very idea would have offended them terribly. But, as he felt they were only playing versions of the characters rather than trying to emulate or be them, he could say whatever he wanted. “Of course, my lord.” And they slipped into the corridor together.

William had been jesting about the “dark walks”, but the corridor was indeed very long and had several nooks cunningly built into it, ostensibly for sitting alone, as each one contained a chair. Still, they were just deep enough that two people might be well-concealed within them. He longed to take Tom by the coat, pull him into one, and kiss him; to begin a thing that belonged perfectly to this dark, wild place they had built of wood and canvas. But before he could try anything, Tom was tugging him into one of those nooks, shoving the chair aside. It was a snug space, though not so much that they did not have a small gap between them.

“Miss Anville,” Tom murmured in a tone of earnest sincerity, once again leaning forward, his breath hot against William’s mouth. “I can restrain myself no longer. I desire you madly -- I long for you, groan for you, _burn_ for you. Do as you will with my declaration. I am in this matter utterly yours.” (Words that Lord Orville never would have spoken -- or if she had imagined him to, Miss Burney certainly wouldn’t have committed them to paper -- but it really didn’t matter.) He spoke the last words right at William’s ear, his tongue barely brushing the curve, and William felt his knees knock together, watched his field of vision glaze over and fall away. 

“Mine, my lord?” he managed, affecting an air of surprised delight very well for one who was in the grip of a dizzying lust. “Then let me assure you, I am as much yours as you are mine. Look at me.” Tom straightened his head and William looked into his eyes once more: they too had become clouded. Unexpectedly, his throat tightened. It was good, so good, to be wanted now, when they all swayed on the precipice of the next stage in this endless, exhausting journey. “If you would kiss me, my lord, I would find proof of your feelings in it.”

“Much obliged, my dearest Miss Anville,” Tom whispered, and they made short work of the gap between them.

It was a somewhat messy affair, as the lack of a strong wall made it so that they had to cling to each other to remain standing. William wished they could have gone crashing to the ground, but said ground being ice and snow, he settled for angling himself so that he leant lightly against a tent-pole. In their kisses he indeed found proof of Tom’s feelings, and of his own: hunger met with hunger and became something raw and uncontrollable; he knew that, if they remained clutching at each other in this way, he might fly apart at the seams, or like glass shatter into a thousand pieces. He darted his eyes over towards the nook’s entrance, to see if anyone was passing by, and saw the discarded chair instead. The chair -- of course--

“Wait.” The urgency he put into his voice succeeded in making Tom break from him. “The chair. We need the chair -- please.” (One should always at least say “please” when requesting a favour of an earl.)

“If it’s in here there won’t be -- oh.” Tom smiled wickedly and laid a light kiss on William’s jaw. “At once, _Miss Anville,”_ and the address seemed to sear on the air, momentarily turning it bright and hot. Before Tom could set the chair down, William took it and propped it as closely as he could against the pole, praying that their collective weight wouldn’t cause it to fall in. 

“Do you care to sit, my lord?” he asked. Tom sat, and William followed suit, straddling him: it was not entirely comfortable or stable, and even a pallet would have been much easier to work with, but alas, for all Carnivale’s size, no one had been quite energetic enough to drag anything even resembling a bed miles across the ice and into the tents. This would have to do. 

Tom’s hands found his waist and pulled him just an inch closer, leading to a tiny creak from the pole. William flinched, sent up another prayer to whatever was watching (God? Did God watch people doing these things, or was He polite enough to avert His eyes?), and ground his hips down against Thomas’s, who gasped and just barely kept himself from lurching forward. A laugh inexplicably formed in his throat. Fancy Evelina Anville ever doing a thing like this! If he had known this was where he would end up, his first choice would have been Moll Flanders. (Fanny Hill was too damned obvious.)

They began slowly at first, but soon instinct took over, and the only thing that stopped the poor chair from rocking back and forth, or toppling straight over, was how snugly it had been jammed in. Tom was so close that William could see the lines that crinkled underneath his eyes, the veins that traced their way beneath his skin. _The last time I will ever be this close to someone, perhaps,_ and the tightness returned to his throat as he buried his face in Tom’s neck, fastening his mouth to what little flesh there was available, shuddering when Tom moaned and pushed his hand into his hair.

It did not last much longer. William’s breath came hard and quick and the friction between them grew unbearable, a thing stretched impossibly taut. Then it snapped -- his body seized, and he blindly grabbed for the tent-pole, bracing himself mere seconds before a violent spasm overcame him. Tom had already gone stiff and still beneath him, and now they sank against each other, their heartbeats beginning to slow. 

“Good God, my lord,” William gasped, stroking Tom’s cheekbone with his thumb. He wasn’t sure if their game had paused a few minutes ago or not -- though it did seem impossible not to be one’s own self when engaged such. Nevertheless, that was no reason not to try and resume it, and have a bit more fun. “I never dreamed you could be so…” He searched for a word.

“Forward? Or is the word you’re looking for ‘wonderful’?” Tom was still catching his breath. 

“Wonderful, yes, _and_ forward. I have heard nothing of you that would indict you as the sort to do a young lady such… kindnesses.”

Tom grinned and started laughing. “Then you have never read my correspondence, Miss Anville.” His own laugh, the one that had formed earlier, rose to his mouth, and William was unable to help himself. He dropped his head into his hands to try and stop it, but it immediately proved to be a futile effort, and he gave in. If there was one thing almost better than being wanted, it was having any cause but bitterness to laugh. So there they sat, one still atop the other, shaking with a laughter that was only partially from the joke. The other part was a mix of emotions William could not quite sort out at the moment, though he could sense a sort of affectionate relief in it. 

“Can we stay here a little longer?” he asked, not bothering with “my lord”. In this, he wanted to be no one other than himself.

“Don’t see why not,” Tom said, wrapping an arm around his waist. William smiled and kissed the side of his head in thanks.

And so they did.


	5. On Nineteenth-Century Expeditions We Write Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the walk out begins, Blanky mentally composes a letter to his wife, Esther.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The "Francis" and "James" mentioned in Blanky's letter are his stepsons, from Esther's marriage with her first husband James Wilson. "Hannah" was her daughter with Blanky.  
> 2\. I found a great and helpful article about the Blankys' marriage: https://nycroblog.com/2020/07/17/thomas-blanky-arctic-seafarer/.

_Dear friend:_

_When the day brings petty aggravations_

_And my poor frayed nerves are all askew_

_I forget these unimportant matters_

_Pouring out my hopes and dreams to you_

\-- “Three Letters” from _She Loves Me_ (written by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick)

***

Francis had refused, nay, absolutely forbidden him from hauling. _“No,”_ he’d snapped from between his teeth. “You know you can’t, Thomas, not on a crutch. I’ll -- we’ll not have you killing yourself out of blind determination. We need you elsewhere, at least until we reach land.”

“We’re not sailing anymore, Francis, and Mr Hartnell--”

“Mr Hartnell has been reading the ice for far less long than you have. We need your eye undistracted out there, Thomas. And besides, if we don’t get you home as you are, Esther will have my head.”

(If they hadn’t all just escaped a raging fire, Thomas would have smiled -- once, for the image of a merciless Esther chopping off Francis’s head, and twice for Francis saying “we” instead of “I”. Perhaps they weren’t quite damned to a future of leadership made lesser by quarrelling.)

Thomas had decided to stop pressing the issue then. It was late, and everyone needed their rest after racing back to the ships. He’d left for his cabin and fallen asleep almost as soon as he’d lain down.

So here he was now, two hours into the walkout towards King William Island (then Back’s Fish River, then Fort Resolution), feeling rather useless as he pushed himself along, and thinking of Esther.

He’d liked her right off for her astuteness; she had a way of seeing into people, guessing correctly or closely at their intentions twenty minutes after meeting them. He still remembered the look she’d given him when he’d asked her to marry him: a hard stare, the kind that lasted so long he’d started wondering if she had actually gained the ability to see straight through him, or he’d somehow turned transparent. But then her _smile_ \-- he’d be damned if she didn’t light up the entire house with it. 

He hadn’t written to her since the creature had mauled him. It wasn’t as though there were any way to send them, by now, but writing brought him a kind of peace of mind and made him feel as though she were a little closer than she was. Well. Here, for the first time in months, was nothing but time. He might make the best of it. The mind wasn’t pen and paper, but it would serve just as well. He thought:

_Esther, my love,_

_Well, we’ve gotten ourselves out of that tight spot I told you about, if only by walking right out of it. It’s not what anyone calls ideal, but we’ve not got much choice on how to get home now. You ought to have heard Francis refusing to let me haul (and I know I couldn’t anyway, with this wooden leg of mine; I was only doing my part to be helpful); he told me you’d have his head if I didn’t get home as I was. I think he’s rather afraid of you, which I hope gives you a good laugh. I wonder how often you laugh now. Not that I’m suggesting you wouldn’t laugh without me, but if I catch myself laughing, I wish I was back there to see if you’d join me. Half of the time you do, and half of the time you think I’m mad for finding whatever I’m laughing at funny. I think it might be the latter more often than not, now._

_I told you about Mr Hartnell in my last letter. He’s still helping me, though I’ve been long on my feet. I’ve been thinking about bringing him around sometime after we get back; he’s a good lad, honest, and he knows when to speak and when to keep his head down. You might like him well. I don’t suppose you’d mind seeing Francis again, either. He and Fitzjames have become rather close the past month, which only proves that my instincts were correct about them being more alike than they thought. I’ve teased him now and then about being a regular Darcy when it comes to romances (save for Miss Cracroft, unfortunately), and what do you know, Fitzjames is a regular Lizzy Bennet to match him. Lt Le Vesconte, Mr Jopson, and I are extremely pleased by this development, and they both owe a few pounds each. They’re not allowed to complain; I warned them when we made that bet that longevity would win out, and I was right._

_Enough about me and our situation. How’s the pub running? Are Francis and James dropping in to help from time to time, as they said they would? (If Hannah’s asking after me, tell her that God and King William Island willing, I should be home by this time next year.) And you, how are you holding out? I’m not sure if I can imagine how you’re feeling; I’ve never been the one who had to wait. I wish I’d asked before I left, or that I could ask you now._

_I’ve not told anyone else this, but sometimes I get this funny feeling in my chest: tight, as if something were stopping my breath. I suppose it comes from missing you. It passes, but I can still sense it hovering over me, and most keenly when I’m downcast. I should be used to it by now, close as it is, and it doesn’t quite surprise me, but even so it always creeps up on me and I realise I’ve forgotten how strong it is. I shouldn’t forget. But I do, and there’s no way I can really explain it, other than the usual tolls of being out here._

_Nothing more to report than this, I’m afraid. I am, as always,_

_Ever your,_

_THOMAS._


	6. Questions on Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophia receives news that causes her to reflect on herself and her relationship with Francis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reviewed the scenes with Sophia, and there's a few lines that indicate she blames herself for Francis leaving on the expedition. I decided to take that what I see as its possible logical conclusion.

_ I see a red door and I want it painted black _

_ No colours anymore, I want them to turn black _

_ I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes _

_ I have to turn my head until my darkness goes _

\-- “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones (written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards)

***

Sir James calls on them on a Wednesday afternoon when the sun is shining so bright that even opening the curtains causes one’s eyes to water. He sits on the edge of his chair, the expression on his face somber and ashen, turning his words redundant. He does not stay long after delivering his news, despite his offer, which Aunt Jane thanks him for but turns down. After he leaves, she rises and leaves the parlour without saying a word, leaving Sophia alone to stare at her hands, which she can’t stop moving: thread the fingers together and take them apart, clasp the palms and unclasp them, thread the fingers together… 

It is two years since she stood barefoot in the snow, and she can feel the cold burning between her toes again. She curls them inside her shoes. No good. They rub against each other and the cold spreads to the rest of her feet.

She winces. Is she even allowed to feel this way, when she--

(it’s not fair to him or to me)

He would have gone anyway. He said he’d go, return, and retire to marry her. So he would have gone anyway, no matter what she asked of him.

(unless you asked him to stay)

She hadn’t been lying, when she’d told him being a captain’s wife was unsuitable for her. Even more so now, when she knows a little what it’s like: the endless waiting, the swinging between highest hope and lowest despair which is enough to drive anyone mad, the brave mask that must be donned for the Admiralty, the mask they’re just waiting to see crack; the constant reassurances, to the world, Aunt Jane, and herself that  _ they’re intelligent, brave men, there’s no way they can’t find the Passage and get home safe,  _ when she doesn’t even care about the Passage in the first place. Or didn’t.

Oh, God, the irony. She almost laughs at herself. 

She isn’t even sure she wants to be anyone’s wife. The idea of attaching herself to someone for the rest of her life seems to loom above her, foreboding, if not quite a threat. Uncle John and Aunt Jane have always allowed her a degree of independence that is a little less than she would like, and she’s been determined for a time now to carve out some space in her life for herself alone. That space seems smaller and smaller lately, as she and Aunt Jane travel from club to society to house, repeating their cause to everyone who’s anyone. 

(he would have given you that space if you’d asked)

But how much of it would have been her own? Can one even have their own space, true privacy, in marriage? She doesn’t know, and supposes she would have to marry to find out. And she doesn’t want to, no, she can’t, until she knows, but she can’t know unless she does, and so it goes, round and round, and she’s caught herself in the wheel’s spokes too many times.

She does -- did -- love him,

(i think)

though it wasn’t the love one read about in books. It was not  _ I am half agony, half hope  _ or  _ if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more,  _ not for her, at least. It was an easy kind of love. She could talk with him as she couldn’t with others, with Uncle and Aunt least of all. She was most pleased with herself when she made him laugh; he could make her laugh so easily with a thousand stories from his childhood (oh, Lord, the  _ cow),  _ and she came up with so little in comparison. Hers had been a quiet life, made from closed doors and drawn curtains, and as much as she liked it that way, she couldn’t deny that it was far better than she had imagined to have more sound, more light, more colour come into it. 

“I’d make you happy,” he’d told her each time he proposed. Both times, she had wanted to reply,  _ You already do, _

_ (can’t we go on as we have?) _

Still. She loved him. That’s enough, isn’t it? One always grieves their loved ones. It’s been the way of things since the earth’s inception, and it still is. Surely she has no choice but to partake in it, just as Aunt Jane has no choice.

Still. Isn’t there something perverse about it? He did as she asked, and he died. Is she to grieve him because she can, because it’s what she wants, or only because she owes it to him? Or does she have no right, and must shut herself off from it?

Caught up in the wheel again. A bitter sound, something between a laugh and a cry, squeezes her throat. 

Thread the fingers together and take them apart… 


	7. The Green Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George Hodgson plays piano for an underground club. When Henry Le Vesconte comes on as a singer, George's world is thrown out of joint, but that might not be such a bad thing, life-wise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This whole thing is kind of a Billy Wilder homage, in particular to two of the films he wrote with I. A. L. Diamond, SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959), and THE APARTMENT (1960). The latter is where the last two pieces of dialogue come from.  
> 2\. Every epigraph so far has been from the 1960s, but I made an exception here, since the song is actually from the year the story is set in, and it fit the plot.

_I chew my nails, I twiddle my thumbs_

_I’m gettin’ nervous, honey, but it sure is fun_

_Come on baby, you drive me crazy_

_Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!_

\-- “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis (written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer)

***

_Brooklyn, November of 1957_

Down the street (“Did you remember to turn off the gas, darling?” a woman brushing past him asked her companion), around the corner (the streetlight was already on and it was only four-thirty), down the stairs, and through the door (“Hey, Ned.” “Tom’s waiting for you.” “Already?” “Yeah, he’s got something he needs to tell you.”); down the narrow, cramped hallway, through the door to the green room, and there was Tom, speaking with a man whose hair and face were shadowed by his hat.

Tom turned his head. “George! This is that singer I told you we were looking for.”

“Henry Le Vesconte,” the other man said, shaking George’s hand with one hand and taking off his hat with the other. “You’re the piano player, right? Pleased to meet you.”

George nodded. “That I am”, and he told him his name. Mr. Le Vesconte looked as though he were about to say something, but Tom cut in.

“You two mind a little rehearsal -- figure out how to work, together-wise? We open in an hour and no one’s gonna be too pleased if you keep messing up.”

“Sure--”

“Sounds fine--”

“Great. Stage’s yours. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go talk to Ned about keeping Kirkeby out of here.” Tom hurried from the room, and Mr. Le Vesconte turned to George with a furrowed brow.

“What’s that about a Kirkeby?”

George felt a sound mixing a laugh and a groan in his throat. “He’s this guy who comes in every Wednesday and chooses someone to harass into going home with him. Then when they say no, which is more than half the time, he starts throwing chairs.”

“Oh, what a shame. Here I was, thinking guys like that were native to Chicago and I’d finally gotten them out of my hair.”

George grinned at the affectation of naivete. “Well, on behalf of the city of New York and all of our other patrons, I apologize. Now, uh -- rehearsal?”

“After you.” They sidled through the short passageway leading to the backstage -- it was so narrow you couldn’t walk straight -- and emerged onto the small stage, the majority of which was taken up by a piano, though there was a relatively decent amount of space for someone to move around up front if they wanted to. George took his usual place on the stool, and Mr. Le Vesconte tapped the microphone at the front of the stage. “It’s off.”

“They don’t turn it on until we open up. You need it?”

“Well, I’ve got to put all those reminders to project my voice to use somehow, don’t I?”

George felt another grin coming on. He’d been a little worried when Tom had told him about bringing on a singer; after all, he’d been working here the last three years without trying to match with anyone’s idiosyncrasies, and he’d been doing an above-average job of it too, if he did say so himself. But Mr. Le Vesconte, so far, seemed friendly and like he might be easy to work with. Now to hear him. “You got anything you’re planning to sing tonight?”

“Yeah, you know ‘Let’s Do It’?” Mr. Le Vesconte had replaced his hat.

“I do.” George pressed down a few of the keys to see if it was still in tune (it was) and started rifling through the sheet music in the box by the stool for the aforementioned song; there it was, between “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “Love for Sale”. “You want me to start?” Mr. Le Vesconte nodded. “Alright.”

“Hey, wait.” Mr. Le Vesconte turned fully around. “You mind if I kind of interact with you? Sing parts of the song to you, and all that? I did that with the piano player in the last place I worked, and it was kind of a hit. I just want to try it now; we don’t have to do it later if it doesn’t work.”

George considered. Better to know if he could withstand that now than later, if Mr. Le Vesconte should suddenly start improvising. “Go ahead.” He placed the sheet music on the stand and played the opening notes, keeping the corner of his eye on the stage in front of him. Mr. Le Vesconte stood at the microphone, his hat cocked so as to just cover his eyes. 

_“Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”_ Off with the hat and up with one of the hands, which he curled one finger at a time around the mic. _“In Spain the best upper sets do it -- Lithuanians and Letts do it -- Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”_ It was getting harder to keep only the corner of his eye on the stage. Thank God he’d played this song about seventy times before. _“The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it, not to mention the Finns.”_ The distraction really wasn’t Mr. Le Vesconte’s fault -- he probably couldn’t help that voice: low, with some gravel rolling through it, and just on the edge of sultry, as if Lauren Bacall had gone into singing instead of the pictures. And, pardon him for thinking like this about a man he’d just met, but with how he drew out the pause between “do it” and “let’s”, there wasn’t going to be a person who liked men in the house who wasn’t, just for a split second, imagining what he might be like in bed. 

Oh, Jesus Christ. It should be humanly impossible to think like that about people you just met. It made you feel like a real louse.

Mr. Le Vesconte had come closer. _“Electric eels, I might add, do it, though it shocks ‘em, I know. Why ask if shad do it?”_ He leaned against the side of the piano, tipped his head down, and looked George dead in the eye. _“Waiter, bring me shad roe.”_ A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, his voice dropped to nearly a whisper, and his eyes shone mischievously, as though the lyric were a private joke between them. It was through sheer force of will and sudden determination to work well with this man that George didn’t blush or shiver. This was exactly what he had worried about, and now he would give anything to keep it going. Anyway, he’d almost memorized most of the standards; he could surely play them while being stared down by one of the best-looking men he’d ever met. While his heart was ringing in his ears. Whilst his blood hummed. While his face burned…

How could he already be this far gone? Was he even far gone? It’d been years since he’d been with anyone; he didn’t think it was possible to forget what the difference between falling in love and one-time attraction was, but now it was apparent that that knowledge had slipped his mind. Oh, this was wonderful. Forget losing his job, he was probably going to make a fool of himself. Then there’d be no other option except to flee to Florida with a girls’ band.

They finished the song, and Mr. Le Vesconte, who had ended up where he began, came back over to the piano, once again leaning against the side. “That wasn’t a problem for you, was it? Me coming over here.”

“What? Oh, uh -- no. I’ve probably played almost everything there is fifty times each here. Do what you want, I’ll be fine.” The words came out much faster than he usually spoke, and he suppressed a groan. There he went, already making a fool of himself.

“Thanks. You want to try another?”

“What else are you thinking of singing?” Thank God, that came out sounding normal.

“‘Love for Sale’, ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’, ‘Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat’…” He listed a few more George was familiar with. “You know those?”

“Yeah.”

Tom came in through the doors at the far end of the room. “We’re gonna start checking everything soon. Can you go back to the green room?”

“Sure thing.” Mr. Le Vesconte retrieved his hat and tipped it in Tom’s direction. “At your service, Mr. Jopson.” Tom snorted.

“You’re the funny type, aren’t you?”

“Nothing I didn’t tell you in my audition, sir.” He turned and headed back down the passage to the green room. George followed, and they sat across from each other at the small table. Mr. Le Vesconte reached into his jacket pocket and took out a cigarette. “You mind if I smoke?”

“No, go ahead.” George followed his fingers as he lit it: not particularly short or long, but careful and precise in a sort of casual way; he was doing this for the thousandth time, but he paid just enough attention to keep his fingers unburned. 

Oh, who the hell paid attention to how people lit their cigarettes? He was going to have to talk, or he’d keep staring even after he was noticed. What did he say before they rehearsed? Something about getting away from guys in-- “You from Chicago?”

“What?”

“Earlier. You said you were hoping there weren’t guys like Kirkeby here, because you’d met them in Chicago. You from Chicago?”

Mr. Le Vesconte took a drag off his cigarette, then stopped himself. “Oh. You want one?” George shook his head. “Well, no. I’m from Seattle.”

“Seattle? How’d you get halfway across the country?”

“What do you think, Mr. Hodgson? A train.” Mr. Le Vesconte laughed at his own joke, then straightened his face. “Sorry. That wasn’t as funny as it sounded in my head.”

“Forget it,” George said quickly. “I should’ve asked _why’d_ you go halfway across the country?”

“Well, would you believe it, but there was not a single job for me in Seattle. Every club had their singer and they didn’t need another one. So I went to the first city I could think of, and that was Chicago. I got lucky. Plenty of work down there, until the vice squad came down on our place.”

George had heard of vice squads breaking into places like this, but had never witnessed it himself. Fitzjames kept up a very good front. “Oh. Sorry about that.”

“I got a tip from a friend that this place has been around ten years without a peep. So after I coughed up half my savings for bail, I took off for New York. Got lucky again, I guess, since I landed a job here. What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. What’s your story?” Mr. Le Vesconte stubbed out his cigarette and leaned his face on his hand.

George took a breath. “I’ve lived here my whole life. Brooklyn, that is. Not New York in general. My aunts got me started on piano. I hated it until I was twelve, which is when I realized that I wasn’t going to be the next Fred Astaire, and then I buckled down and decided it wasn’t so bad.”

“You wanted to dance?”

“Yeah, only one problem. I had and still have two left feet.”

“That’s what everyone says until they find the right music. Take me, for example. The only thing I can passably dance to is anything from _Kiss Me, Kate._ Everything else, I’m hopeless, but put that record on and I’m the poor man’s Gene Kelly.”

George snorted, beginning to laugh, and caught himself. “Then I haven’t found the right music, I guess.” Silence ensued, and Mr. Le Vesconte lit another cigarette. “You like it here in New York, so far?”

“Well, I haven’t seen much of it yet, but sure. Sure, I do.” He lowered his eyelids and smiled the same smile he’d had up on the stage, and George heard his heart in his ears again. Ridiculous, when it was possible this wasn’t anywhere near a flirtation. For all he knew, Mr. Le Vesconte behaved this way with everybody. It was as natural to him as breathing. He decided to change the subject, and remembered the cards in his jacket. “You know how to play gin rummy?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind learning. Do you? I’ve heard it’s a lot.”

“Yeah. I usually play against myself while I’m waiting, but now that you’re here, we can have a real game.” George fished the deck out of his pocket. “You’re right about this being a lot. Okay, so the cards, they have values. King is highest, then queen, then jack, then ten…”

He was only halfway through his explanation of how to deal (Mr. Le Vesconte, bless him, was paying rigorous attention) when Tom poked his head in to tell them “You’re on” and they put away the cards to begin their set. George was expecting the look on the line about shad roe. What he wasn’t expecting was that Mr. Le Vesconte would sing “Put the Blame on Mame” sitting on top of the piano, turning to look at him every time he reached the refrain of _“Put the blame on Mame, boys”,_ with that twinkle in his eyes that was already doing a reliable job of making George dizzy. He reminded himself afterwards, walking home, that it was part of the act. Just because they were getting along in the green room and just because they worked well together onstage, it didn’t mean anything. Plenty of singers probably played the coquette with their _(their?_ Good God) musicians, and plenty of musicians probably went along with it, and then were perfectly platonic the rest of the time. This was nothing but a week-long crush, a reaction to someone acting (emphasis on _acting)_ in a slightly romantic fashion towards him. Everything would be professionalism and business as usual by the first of the next month. 

(Please let it be.)

***

_24 December 1957_

Fitzjames’s was one of the few places still open on Christmas Eve. This was by necessity, as most of the patrons didn’t have anyone to leave town for, and needed some place to gather with their found families. So George was already at the piano, testing himself to see if he still knew “Let it Snow” by heart, when he heard “There you are.”

He turned his head to see Mr. Le Vesconte, still in his coat, his hat covered in snow. “It’s not snowing,” said Mr. Le Vesconte, “if that’s what you’re thinking, but a tree decided that its branches were too delicate for snow, and since I was passing under, I bore the brunt. Anyway, what’s the plan for tonight? I must know every Christmas song written in the last thirty years.”

“I thought we’d try to find something a little unconventional,” George said, brightening as he explained the idea he’d come up with that afternoon. “Something still festive, but not what they’re expecting.”

“Sounds great. If I had to sing ‘White Christmas’ this year I was going to keel over dead of boredom.”

“Get your coat off and come back here; I’ll give you some of my suggestions.” Mr. Le Vesconte disappeared back down the passage, and George took stock of his situation. _Business as usual by the first of the next month,_ who was he kidding? Mr. Le Vesconte’s onstage behavior was killing him, in both the best and worst ways possible. One wink, one grin, two words sung close to his ear, and he wanted to forget the song, stand up, pour every stupid feeling in his heart out, and kiss Mr. Le Vesconte right there in front of everyone. And all for a little acting. What a chump he was making.

Was it acting, by now? They’d been getting on so well in the green room, too: gin rummy and conversations that made him forget how the clanging radiator couldn’t quite keep the room warm, or that he should have been home half an hour ago. And those bright, knowing grins, those sparkling eyes, those fingers almost brushing his, they weren’t exclusive to performance. He’d seen and felt them over a good hand of cards, or in the midst of a long story. Was Mr. Le Vesconte trying to tell him something the only way he knew how? Did the words stick in his throat, like they did in George’s?

The sensible thing would have been to say how he felt in private, but again, words stuck in his throat. Some nights it was nothing short of maddening.

Mr. Le Vesconte came back in and dragged the stool at the front over to the piano to sit down next to George. “What’s your suggestion?”

“You see that picture three years ago, _White Christmas_?” A nod in response. “I thought we could do something from that. I guess it’s appropriate -- it’s set around Christmas, but not every song has to do with that. The sheet music’s right here, if you want to look through.” He passed him a sheaf of paper, and Mr. Le Vesconte started looking through. He stopped soon.

“What about this?” George looked over.

“‘Sisters’? That’s a duet.”

“Yeah. We can sing it together.” George let out a self-deprecating laugh. 

“You don’t want to sing with me. I’m not like you, I’m not trained--”

“Does this look like the Metropolitan Opera? I don’t think anyone’s going to mind. Please. I want to sing with you. You play so well, you must have some musical instinct elsewhere.”

George knew he was turning red. You know what? Mr. Le Vesconte was right. It was Christmas. People were full of good cheer and wouldn’t care if he sounded like a dying cat (which he didn’t, but that was the point). He might as well try, and it would be good in the long run if he knew how to sing and play at the same time. It might land him a job or two later. So he nodded. “Okay. But if this doesn’t work, how about ‘The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing’?”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” Mr. Le Vesconte rose and sat on the piano. “This is where I’ll be, if you don’t mind.” George shook his head. “Now, a-five-six-seven-eight!”

Rehearsal took most of the hour before opening, but since George already had quite a bit of practice looking between the keys, the music, and Mr. Le Vesconte, it wasn’t too difficult to add singing to the mix. Tom dropped in from talking with the spotlight operator after their third run-through. “Hey, Fitzjames says that you can perform just this one song and hang around after, if you want.”

“Oh? Well, we’d better run through again and make it perfect.” Mr. Le Vesconte grinned. “Though we’re pretty near that, Tom. Mr. Hodgson here’s a fast learner.”

“‘Mr. Hodgson’? Formal, aren’t we?” Tom raised an eyebrow at both of them.

“We’re co-workers, aren’t we?” George asked in reply, trying desperately not to look at Mr. Le Vesconte and gauge his response to that statement. He only just succeeded, darting his eyes over what seemed like a fraction of a second, too quickly to actually see anything.

Tom shrugged, said “Whatever you say”, and went back up the stairs. Mr. Le Vesconte’s grin had disappeared, and there was sort of a funny look on his face, like he was halfway between wanting to think of something and not wanting to think of it. George resisted the urge to tap him on the shoulder.

“Again?” he asked. Mr. Le Vesconte blinked a few times, and nodded.

“Five, six, seven, eight,” and they began another run-through. George wondered what that look had been about, and decided to ask later, or see if Mr. Le Vesconte would explain it himself. Right now he needed to focus on the song.

The club filled up a little more slowly than usual, but it was still nearly at capacity, and they waited whilst Tom explained the shortened performance. As George played the first measure, Mr. Le Vesconte gave him a wink -- not the quick, coquettish wink of previous performance, but a warm, supportive one that warmed his chest. Before he could think, he returned the wink, and before he could think again, they had to come in.

 _“Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters,”_ they began together.

_“Never had to have a chaperone, no sir--”_

_“I’m here to keep my eye on her,”_ George finished as Mr. Le Vesconte turned himself so his legs were dangling off the side rather than the back of the piano.

_“Caring, sharing, every little thing that we are wearing--”_

_“When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome--”_

_“She wore the dress, and I stayed home.”_

_“All kinds of weather, we stick together, we stick together, the same in the rain and sun.”_ Mr. Le Vesconte was swaying back and forth to the music, never taking his eyes off of George, who, in spite of all the recent practice, suddenly found it tricky to remember the next note, much as it stared at him from the sheet music. He didn’t mind it, though. Not when Mr. Le Vesconte’s eyes seemed to shine under the stage lights and catch their different colors -- blue, red, green. Not when his hand was resting lightly on George’s shoulder. Nevertheless, he played on, and they continued. _“Two different faces, but in tight places, we think and we act as one. Those who’ve seen us, know that not a thing could come between us. Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can. Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister, and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!”_ The instrumental break provided an opportunity to recollect himself, but by the time they finished and the applause began, he had fallen apart again, this time due to Mr. Le Vesconte’s smile, which, whilst still flirtatious, was wider than ever. Proud, George realized, he’s proud of us, and his heart rang in his ears once, twice, three times.

They stuck around afterwards, for another game of gin. Mr. Le Vesconte had picked up the game quickly, and beat George about two times out of five, but tonight he seemed like his mind was wandering; the funny look was on his face again. George set down the cards. “You here?” he asked, trying to sound gentle. “Because from here it looks like you’re somewhere else.”

Mr. Le Vesconte sighed, and looked more wistful than George had ever seen him. “I am.”

“You want to talk about it? That might help.”

Mr. Le Vesconte hesitated, and then sighed again. “Sure, why not? I was just thinking about last Christmas Eve. Not too hot a time for me.”

“What happened?” George wasn’t surprised. The only reason his last three Christmases had been as good as they were was because of Fitzjames’s, and he was lucky. Not every person like the two of them found that sort of haven.

“I’d been working at this place for a few months, and -- oh, God, you should’ve seen him, he looked like William Holden. The stage manager, that is. I was crazy about him. Sheldrake. I’m telling you his name so if you ever run into him, you run the other way. We’d been sort of on and off for the first month, and in the second month he told me that he wanted me to live with him. I thought it was a little quick, but like I said, I was crazy about him. I thought that for about two seconds and dismissed it. So a few weeks later I pack up everything and go to his apartment, and I find him in bed with the bartender.” He laughed ruefully. “I felt like the worst idiot. I mean, what kind of fool do you have to be to think that someone whom you’ve only gone home with five times wants to live with you? And he got up and put on his robe and said he was going to get rid of everyone else and it’d be just me and him, but I walked out. Sometimes I wonder if he was telling the truth then.”

 _We’re all fools in love,_ George thought of saying, but all that came out his mouth was, “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. I guess it’s my own fault, for letting myself be blind. I gave myself the fuzzy end as much as he did.”

Now it seemed more appropriate to say. “I guess we’re all fools in love.” 

“Would you know?”

George shook his head, and thought that it was only fair to be honest. “The last relationship I was in ended because he got a job in Maine and I didn’t want to come up with him. It was friendly enough; he still writes me sometimes. Six years ago.”

“And you haven’t found anyone else since?”

 _You._ But it wasn’t the right time to say that either, not when Mr. Le Vesconte had just opened up to him. So he shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Maybe I did and I passed them by.”

“I’ve thought about that. Sometimes I notice a guy in the street and I think, what if he’s the one for me, but I’m never going to meet him because he’s just someone I’m walking past?”

George looked down at his watch. Eight o’clock, and the temperature was supposed to drop below zero by nine. “Do you mind if I start for home? Only I want to get there before it’s too cold.”

“You live far from here?”

“No, four blocks.”

“I’m five blocks. Mind if I come with you?”

“Not at all.”

So they left, and the air didn’t seem to bite as much as it did when George walked home alone.

***

_31 December 1957_

New Year’s Eve was special for the employees at Fitzjames’s. It was the one night they became patrons along with everyone else, as a record player plugged into a few large speakers played the music, and people were free to get their own drinks as long as everyone was responsible. The chairs and tables had been put away, with only a few decorating the edge of the room, and the entire room had become the dance floor. Three records had already played, and now it was almost midnight. The next record would carry over into the new year.

George had spent most of the evening considering, as he had for the last six days, Mr. Le Vesconte’s story about the stage manager. He had made himself vulnerable, peeled back his skin and shown George a fraction of the worries, the insecurities, that lay beneath. It seemed an unmistakably personal thing, a gesture of almost absolute trust. Not that George couldn’t be trusted -- he wasn’t the kind to go blabbing other people’s stories, not anymore. But to open up so readily -- would he have told that story to anyone who asked, or did he speak so quickly because it had been George who asked him? The rest of the week had provided no answer, as they had resumed their usual interactions. George had thought a few times of bringing it up, but no time ever seemed to be right, and besides, maybe Mr. Le Vesconte didn’t want it brought up. Maybe he had wanted to get it out there and never speak of it again.

He looked at the clock. Eleven-fifty-two. Eight minutes. He’d already decided not to try and kiss Mr. Le Vesconte at midnight. He didn’t want to overstep himself with that many people around. If that should be reversed, he didn’t know what he’d do. 

Tom put the next record on, and a horn’s wail rang through the room, smooth and warm, like something melting down your back, and then a man’s voice sang, _“It’s too darn hot… it’s too darn hot.”_ Immediately people were up and swaying away: this one was always a hit, no matter who or what was playing it. George tapped his foot to the rhythm; as the song built, he saw Mr. Le Vesconte squeezing through the dance floor, making his way over to him. When he was close, George could see the sweat beading his forehead, for it was indeed quite hot in the club, due to the combination of radiators turned up on high and people packed together.

Mr. Le Vesconte held out his hand. “Mr. Hodgson. Dance with me?”

It took George a second to comprehend his request and then he shook his head. “I told you. Two left feet.”

“And I told you that _I_ have two left feet except for _Kiss Me, Kate_ and this is from _Kiss Me, Kate._ Come on. If you really can’t, I’ll just pull you along with whatever I’m doing.”

“Oh, alright.” In truth, he wouldn’t have taken much more convincing. He very much wanted to dance with Mr. Le Vesconte. 

They found a spot towards the edge of the floor and joined hands. The song had by now reached its instrumental break, horns and bells and drums, and the whole room seemed to be a sea of tapping feet, snapping fingers, and nodding heads, everyone as jittery as the music itself. Then a burst into the smoother rhythms of the main tune, and Mr. Le Vesconte guided George into the crush, the two of them moving in a sort of waltz that didn’t seem to have any particular time. George felt his limbs loosen as he pressed against others, felt his neck slacken, and something clicked: his feet didn’t tangle in each other as they always did, and they whirled back and forth in their tiny amount of space; he was laughing, laughing harder than he’d laughed in years, and Mr. Le Vesconte’s smile was nothing short of exuberant. “I told you,” he shouted. “I told you you just had to find the right music!”

By the time the song had ended, midnight had passed, and they slipped out of the main room and into the green room for some (admittedly still stuffy) air. George leaned against the wall, still catching his breath, drenched in sweat, and happier than he ever remembered being. “Thanks,” he managed to gasp. “That was… that was a lot of fun. More fun than I’ve had in a while.” The last words came out without thinking, and he would have regretted them if Mr. Le Vesconte hadn’t nodded as he sat.

“Me, too. Now, should we finish off last night’s game with my win, or not?”

“You were _not_ beating me,” George laughed, but he sat down and got out the cards anyway. Not a bad way to start the new year, losing a game of gin rummy to the man you were in love with. The man who’d never know you were in love with him unless you could just open your mouth and spit it out.

Oh, Christ. Going down _that_ path again. What a way to start the new year, indeed.

***

_14 February 1958_

“‘If I Loved You’?”

“That’s a little long, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. ‘Falling in Love with Love’?”

“You know that one’s not a duet, and it’s about how awful love is, right?”

“Not until now; I’ve never heard it. You got any ideas?”

It being Valentine’s Day, they had decided to duet again, and this time it had been George’s idea. It wasn’t that his idea of fun was to torture himself. It was that he had decided he was finally going to tell Mr. Le Vesconte how he felt about him. Ever since New Year’s, they had been talking more than ever, and he’d made Mr. Le Vesconte laugh seven times, which had to count for something. When he played for him, the looks lasted longer than usual. Hell, he’d sung the entirety of “If I Were a Bell” looking at George and not the patrons. That was poor professionalism, and something had to be driving it. Whether it was friendly or romantic affection he’d find out, and he’d prepared himself for disappointment. It was at least half-likely he’d misread everything.

“I haven’t. What else is in there?” Mr. Le Vesconte crouched next to the box of sheet music. George kept looking through.

“No… that’s a solo… oh, here.” He pulled out a few sheets. “‘People Will Say We’re in Love’?” Mr. Le Vesconte brightened.

“That was my audition song, when I came in here last November.”

“Which part did you sing?”

“Both. Which one do you want?”

“Your choice.”

“I’ll take Laurey’s, you take Curly’s, okay?”

“Okay.”

They set to rehearsing, and right before they performed, Mr. Le Vesconte once again gave him that kind wink. This time it didn’t warm George’s chest as much as it burned in there, a reminder of what he was planning to do. He winked back, and listened to Mr. Le Vesconte sang, standing at the microphone, _“Why do they make up stories that link my name with yours?”_

George swallowed and inhaled. _“Why do the neighbors gossip all day behind their doors?”_

 _“I know a way to prove what they say is quite untrue; here is the gist, a practice of ‘don’ts’ for you.”_ Mr. Le Vesconte moved closer slowly, almost languorous, as if some lazy force were pulling him along. _“Don’t throw bouquets at me -- don’t please my folks too much -- don’t laugh at my jokes too much -- people will say we’re in love!”_ He was leaning against the far side of the piano, facing the audience, but, just like with “If I Were a Bell”, his eyes were fixed on George’s. He wore no smile, flirtatious or otherwise. His eyes gleamed under the stage lights, and his expression was warm, but otherwise unreadable.

George tried to sound cocky. _“Who laughs at your jokes?”_

 _“Don’t sigh and gaze at me, your sighs are so like mine. Your eyes mustn’t glow like mine -- people will say we’re in love! Don’t start collecting things -- give me my rose and my glove.”_ He crossed behind the piano, his hand sliding over George’s shoulders as he went. _“Sweetheart, they’re suspecting things -- people will say we’re in love!”_

George had to swallow again, just to keep his mouth from going completely dry. He turned his head halfway, keeping one eye on the sheet music, and looked at Mr. Le Vesconte, who was still gazing at him with that unreadable expression. _“Some people claim that you are to blame as much as I -- why do you take the trouble to bake my favorite pie? Grantin’ your wish, I carved our initials on that tree -- just keep a slice of all that advice you give, so free.”_ Mr. Le Vesconte was sitting on top of the piano, towards the back, where the keyboard was, and he had turned fully away from the audience, watching George as he played and sang. George thought he saw a flicker in one of his eyes, but it vanished too quickly to confirm. _“Don’t praise my charm too much, don’t look so vain with me; don’t stand in the rain with me, people will say we’re in love. Don’t take my arm too much, don’t keep your hand in mine; your hand looks so grand in mine, people will say we’re in love!”_ He had to keep reminding himself to sing the “don’t”, when his every instinct wanted everything the song recounted. _“Don’t dance all night with me, till the stars fade from above. They’ll see it’s alright with me; people will say we’re in love!”_ He played the last few notes, and there was a smattering of hearty applause; less people had come this year, for some reason. Mr. Le Vesconte usually thanked those who applauded. But tonight he stayed on top of the piano, his face mere inches from George’s, and it was all George could do to remind himself of his plan and refrain from closing that gap.

After their shift, they sat in the green room, a silence, for once, hanging between them. George reached for the cards and gave them to Mr. Le Vesconte; it was his turn to shuffle. Then he swallowed his fear and rationalized his plan to himself for the fifth time that day. By God, it was now or never. You just didn’t sing a song like that with the man you were crazy about and not tell him something. It wasn’t how things were done, and it wasn’t fair to the man you were in love with. He stole a look at Mr. Le Vesconte. He was still shuffling the cards, his eyes fixed downward. So he cleared his throat as quietly as he could, and spoke. “I’m in love with you, Mr. Le Vesconte.” Mr. Le Vesconte stopped and looked up. Maybe he hadn’t heard. George tried again. “Did you hear what I said, Mr. Le Vesconte? I absolutely adore you.” 

Mr. Le Vesconte looked down again. Then he looked up. “Shut up and deal,” was all he said, proffering the deck. But the smile on his face grew wide, warm, even giddy, and practically glowing with joy.

George took the cards and began to deal. It was harder than usual. His entire body was tingling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every song featured or mentioned:  
> "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" by Cole Porter, from the musical PARIS (1928).  
> "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" by Cole Porter, from the musical LEAVE IT TO ME! (1938).  
> "Love for Sale" by Cole Porter, from the musical THE NEW YORKERS (1930).  
> "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, from the musical PAL JOEY (1940).  
> "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" by Frank Loesser, from the musical GUYS AND DOLLS (1950).  
> "Put the Blame on Mame" by Allan Roberts and Doris Fisher, from the film GILDA (1946).  
> "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn (1945).  
> "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin, from the film HOLIDAY INN (1942).  
> "Sisters" by Irving Berlin, from the film WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954).  
> "The Best Things Happen When You're Dancing" by Irving Berlin, from the film WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954).  
> "Too Darn Hot" by Cole Porter, from the musical KISS ME, KATE (1948).  
> "If I Loved You" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, from the musical CAROUSEL (1945).  
> "Falling in Love with Love" by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, from the musical THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE (1938).  
> "If I Were a Bell" by Frank Loesser, from the musical GUYS AND DOLLS (1950).  
> "People Will Say We're in Love" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, from the musical OKLAHOMA! (1943).


End file.
